Baby Food Maker

We have a top-of-the-line baby food maker at our house---me!! I had been told about a $150 baby food maker from Williams Sonoma, but I decided that was unnecessary. Since my overall goal in making my own baby food is to save money, paying that much for a steamer and a masher labelled "baby" completely defeats the purpose! I had e-mailed my friend Amanda to find out the cheapest place to buy baby food (those little jars can add up fast), and she suggested that I try making my own like she had for her daughter Kyra. So I did some reading on-line on a really good website I found - http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/. I cooked the veggies, pureed them in my blender (which happens to have a baby food setting), and spooned the food into ice cube trays. Once the veggies were frozen, I put them into freezer bags labelled w/the contents and the date. According to the web-site the baby food can be frozen up to 3 months in a regular freezer and 6 months in the deep freeze. So far I have made butternut squash, sweet potatoes, carrots, peas, and green beans. I haven't decided if I'm going to try to do fruits yet.

I think the store baby food must be watered down a bit because it doesn't have near the flavor of the veggies I made. Which also makes us think that making our own preserves more of the nutrients of the veggies. I was able to make a good amount, and it really didn't take too much time.

Clara has tasted most types of veggie baby food now so we started bananas yesterday. I LOVE banana baby food - always have, always will. Clara loves bananas too! She ate 7 ounces of bananas yesterday, and we've decided we should probably make her eat more veggies if she's really that hungry. I could tell she liked the bananas because there were no funny faces, and immediately she would swallow and reopen her mouth for more. The only reason we stopped at both lunch and dinner was because the jar was empty! Pea are her least fav. Here's a clip of her eating the peas I made. They had a little more texture than the ones out of the jar, which may be getting to her as well. We'll keep trying. My Mom told me that babies have to try something 3 -4 times before they start to like the taste. Happy eating Clara!